Well, if you missed it, the White Sox played their best game of the season last night in a 6-4 victory over the Brew Crew in Miller Park. It felt very much like playoff baseball as the game bounced back and forth and there were stressful moments to be had on both sides of the diamond.
To start things off, Carlos Rodón is hurt yet again. I feel for the guy, but perhaps Ozzie Guillen summed it up best in the Post Game Live Show with an eye roll and by saying, "Again?"After just two innings of work, Rodón's fastball dropped a few miles an hour and left the game due to shoulder soreness. Perhaps it's time for him and the Sox to move on from a Chicago sports figure not as injury prone since Derrick Rose.
With Rodón out, the likely fifth starter role will most likely go to Ross Detwiler 2.0. Detwiler had a miserable 6.59 ERA last year over 69.2 innings pitched. So far, in his five games and 8.1 innings pitched, he has yet to give up a run. He performed well yet again last night in their key victory. For the second year in a row, the Sox are having starting pitching woes, and it would be nice if Detwiler could fill that spot. The other possible option would be to call up Dane Dunning, but I'm thinking they'll see how Detwiler does first.
This one had a lot of back and forth. After the Sox scored two in the first and Rodón's surrender of his one run to former Sox player Avisaíl García, who is quickly becoming a Sox killer, the game remained a tight 2-1 until the bottom of the fifth, when Jace Fry gave up a couple of hits. In a surprising move, Rick Renteria had him walk Keston Hiura to load the bases to face the struggling but always potent Christian Yelich, who already had two hits in the game. Fry remarkably struck him out on a very hittable pitch for the second out.
Then he brought the highly touted offseason acquisition Steve Cishek in the ballgame. Steve Stone wasn't sure why Cishek would be brought in to face García as Cishek is primarily a slider pitcher and García is primarily a slider hitter. The combo failed for the Sox, as García hit a deadly line drive to left, scoring two and giving the Brewers the lead. Twitter lit up with anti-Cishek rhetoric following that, but as we need to all remember it is early, the García/Cishek matchup was probably not the best.
The game stayed 3-2 until the following inning, when Cishek surrendered another run off a Ben Gamel single scoring Justin Smoak.
It seemed with the way the Sox were leaving runners on base, the game was slipping out of reach, and by the time it got to the top of the seventh with two outs, the thinking was that the four game win streak would come to an end. Luis Robert waited on second, and I sat there wondering when the last time the Sox actually hit a homerun, especially José Abreu. And wouldn't you know it? He hit a bomb on a 3-0 count that flew well above the wall into centerfield.
The following inning, Nomar Mazara got his first hit - a little blooper right past the glove of shortstop Orlando Arcia, which moved the speedy Leury García into third base. With two out, Nick Madrigal walked as pitcher David Phelps threw a wild pitch, scoring García to give the Sox the 5-4 lead. The Sox added to that lead with a Yoan Moncada right field homer in the top of the ninth.
Closer Alex Colomé made things interesting again as he gave up a Keston Hiura double to bring up Christian Yelich for the tying run. But he got Yelich to ground out, ending the ballgame, and bringing the Sox their fifth straight victory. The drama in and out of each inning made any lover of baseball sit on the edge of their seat and made them need to watch more.
For a team like this to go down 1-4 only to come back and go up 6-4 says something about them. They have not been above .500 since 2018. I know it's early, but they are exciting to watch again. I have not missed a game yet, and the team that lost to the Twins and Indians is looking like an entirely different team now. We just have to be more consistent with our starting pitching. If we do that and stay away from anymore injuries, we can win a lot of games. Here's hoping that COVID-19 doesn't end an already exciting season.